Lippmann Dupe: Red Ruby Slippers

I am sure others of you have read about the wet and wild color Prancer. How it is a great dupe for Lippmann's Red Ruby Slippers. Well I thought I would share with you how I achieved frankening Prancer into the dupe for a fraction of the cost of buying the actual Lippmann color.

First I bought two bottles of Prancer. Two are not needed but I really REALLY like this polish and wanted to make sure I had a backup.

Second, make sure you have some time on your hands before starting this project. It took me over an hour of mixing and swatching to get the right shade of black jelly. I am going to tell you guys exactly what I used and how I did it, but it could easily vary from one black polish to another.

What you need:

• one bottle of Wet and Wild - Prancer
• a bottle of black polish (I used OPI - Onyx)
• a paper towel or sheet of paper to keep mess to a minimum
• toothpick
• spare empty polish bottle and brush cap (not required but recommended if you dislike the Wet and Wild bottle/brush)
• something to swatch on (I used the paper I was set up on to keep the polish off my table)

To start I swatched Prancer on my paper without any black. This was my control.Then I started adding drops of black polish to the bottle. Between adding drops I would take a toothpick and stir the contents of the bottle up as much as possible and then roll it between my hands as well. I feel this helps to speed up the mixing process, though you are welcome to mix as you see fit.

Let me warn you... it takes ALOT of mixing to make sure everything is all stirred up before you swatch to see where you are at each time. This is the time consuming part. When I say drops I mean drops like you add drops to water marble. Just let the black polish drop off of the brush into the prancer bottle.

The first time I added 10 drops, then 10 more and then 15 more. My total was 45 by the end and I did have to removed a bit of the franked polish a few times to be able to add more drops of black to it. So if you have a spare empty bottle laying around I would highly recommend dumping ALL of prancer into it before starting your franken. It would more than likely make the process easier. I myself did not have a large empty bottle to do this with.

So after my 45 drops of OPI- Onyx you can see what two coats of this polish looks like on my nails. I still feel I could add another 10-15 drops to it but at the time I did not want to removed anymore polish from the franken bottle, so I just did my nails. I think I am going to add them now that I have done a Mani and have room for more black.

Well I hope this helps anyone who has been lemming after Red Ruby Slippers. Feel free to post any questions in the comments. I will respond to them ASAP. Oh, and I found Prancer at Walgreen's for 99 cents a bottle.

I will have Mani contest entries and voting steps up within the next two days. My homework is seriously kicking my butt. I thought for sure I would have up the entries yesterday but I had three chapters to read and do notes on and today I have chapter questions to answer and a worksheet to fill out.

Happy Polishing!